Donation Points system

Version 1.01

Made slight changes to server interaction for stability

UpdateYou can now choose to decide your own attribute distribution upon level up, rather than the mod deciding it for you.

EXERGAMING MODE

Exergaming Mode modifies Skyrim so that you level-up your character by training in real life. Lift weights to improve your health, do cardio to improve your stamina; play sports, take fitness classes and stretch to improve your magicka. (Skills are still improved through in-game practice).

Terms and Conditions

Exergaming mode is part of a research project at the University of Auckland's Game Laboratory. By using this mod, you give us permission to use your exercise and game data for research. Your participation is voluntary; you can stop at any time. If you do not want your data to be used, you can email us and we'll delete it. If your data is used in scientific publications, it will be de-identified and only reported in aggregate. If you have any questions about this, please Contact Us.

When you open Skyrim, it will import new workouts and level-up your character accordingly.

If Skyrim doesn't seem to notice that you've logged a workout, go to Setting -> System -> Mod Configuration -> Exergaming Mod -> Settings, select "check for recent workouts", close the menu and give it a minute. Watch for notifications in the upper left corner. If it doesn't work, Contact Us.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I still gain experience by playing?

Training skills levels up individual skill levels, but will not contribute towards player experience or increasing a player's level.e.g. Gaining sneak experience will still allow you to level up the sneak skill, and allow you to progress the sneak skill tree, but won't give experience towards the player's level, or the player's current experience level.

This means the only way to gain player experience is to exercise and to log your exercise data to a linked exercise.com account.

But what about health, magicka and stamina?

The Skyrim Exergaming Mod tries to reflect your personal fitness and exercise gains in real life to your in-game character.

Logging cardio based exercises will develop a dragonborn with much stamina.

Logging sport based exercises will grant a dragonborn techniques and knowledge in the form of magicka.

Logging weight based exercises will bolster a dragonborn's strength as an increase in maximum health.

How are my workouts distributed as experience and stat increases?

Distribution is based on previous workout history. The conversions are developed in a way that rewards the player in game for great effort in the gym, but still provides linear growth to avoid stale plateaus.

What else does this mod change?

Apart from the reworks to the leveling and experience system, skill books now have no effect on player level, UI changes to allow syncing to an exergaming account and various notification messages have been made.

Do I need any other mods installed?

This mod is dependent on two other Skyrim mods. SKSE is required for C++ to be run in skyrim. SkyUI is required for the in game menu.

Manual Installation

After downloading the mod, you should simply need to copy the downloaded files into your Skyrim/Data folder and replace any of the old files.

Create an exercise.com account, if you do not have an exercise.com account this link has more information on creating one.

Run Skyrim with the mod enabled in Skyrims Data Files and either load a game or create a new save (we recommend creating a new save).

Open the Skyrim Menu, navigate to System and then Mod Configurations.

Select the Exergaming Mod sub-menu and turn the mod on, using the email you created the exergaming account with when prompted.

Here you can tell the mod to fetch logged workouts if they don't automatically sync.

Please always download the latest version of the mod from nexusmods, as to avoid incompatibility issues with our servers.

How do I log exercises?

After creating an exercise.com account and syncing it with your exergaming account, you simply need to head to the exercise.com website.

Once you have logged in you should simply need to select the log workout option and type in the various exercises (with sets, times and weights used) and submit your workout.

How do I fetch my exercise information in-game?

After creating all the needed accounts, you should first turn on the mod in game.

This can be done in the menu, under mod settings.

Once you have linked your exergaming email address, you can force fetch a workout from the mod settings menu.

Normally the game will try and fetch your workouts every time you load a save, but if not use the force fetch option.

NOTE: sometimes a force fetch can take a while, but we have included a notification to tell you the fetch is taking place and hasn't stopped.

How do I uninstall the mod?

Simply delete the files replaced by the mod in the Skyrim Data folder, namely Exergaming.esp.

If you run into issues after deleting files, right click the game in your Steam Library, select Properties, then navigate to the Local Files tab and click the Verify Integrity of Game Files button which should download any accidentally deleted core game files.

Anything else?

Yes! This mod (by nature) makes large changes to the base Skyrim game, especially how the leveling and experience system works. We highly recommend trying this mod first with a new character, and backing up all previous character saves for if something to go wrong.

We haven't in depth tested this mod's compatibility with other mods, but that doesn't mean they won't work, so feel free to try them and let us know.

We recommend trying this mod first on a fresh install of Vanilla Skyrim, then installing the needed mods and then the exergaming mod if you are having any issues running it.

Once you have it up and running, we also recommend using the Smart Training mod due to the fact that leveling up once, or even twice, is a big possibility when using exergaming mode, especially at the beginning of the game. To stop you from missing out on any important training sessions you can use the Smart Training mod to have them carry over to the next level.

We're sorry to hear that! The mod is in its early days of release and we're unlikely to have a mass user-base yet, so leave a comment and we'll try our hardest to help you out with any issues or questions you may have.

Who are you, where did you come from?

The Skyrim Exergaming mod is a joint effort from the members of The University of Auckland's Game Lab from all the way in New Zealand.

It was originally a final year engineering project that has evolved into so much more and we're excited to see where it goes from here.

In the future, we plan to use The Skyrim Exergaming mod as the base to test the viability of exergaming as fitness motivation.

By using this mod you're helping us ready for our research into exergaming, so by using the mod you then agree to let us use submitted exercise data for research and testing purposes.